Viola Week - Day 1

So, today is the beginning of viola week. Today, I pulled out my viola and tried to get in tune. It's really sad, but I never knew how to tune my instrument by myself. I think part of it's because I am not naturally able to do things "by ear" and that was how everyone tuned their instruments in my high school orchestra. I never had a tuner and I don't remember a piano that we could use. So I always thought I was just unable to tune my own instrument. It's been 9 years since I was in orchestra and I've only pulled my viola out a very few times in those 9 years. Whenever I did, I couldn't seem to figure out how to tune my instrument. Today, I was much more determined to actually do it. I, mostly, succeeded. My "A" string is having some trouble; at first I thought it was the actual string, but I realized that the peg is just slipping. I found a tip online to help loose pegs, but I didn't have time to try it before Charlie woke up. It felt great tuning those other strings, though. I feel like I'm finally making steps toward something I should have learned more than 10 years ago. My poor viola has been through a lot in the past 9 years, including 5 moves in 3 different states. All of that seems to have been a little hard on the viola; one of the seams looks like it's starting to separate and the varnish is cracked a little bit, but I don't think it's a huge deal because it seemed to work just fine today. Tomorrow I will do more inspecting and see if I can get that peg to stay in place as well.